The Facebook Survival Guide: News Feed and Promoted Posts
Ever since Geoffrey Colon spilled the beans at Social@Ogilvy on September 25, brand owners and social strategists have been up in arms against Facebookâs changes to the ranking algorithm, which determines whereâand ifâa story shows up on a userâs News Feed. Unfortunately, the tune-up came at a steep cost to the Organic and Viral Reach of Facebook Pages, and the public had a thing or two to say about it. Star Trek superstar and pop personality George Takei complained on his Page to nearly 3 million fans. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban balked at the $3,000 price tag on a promoted post and announced a move to other social media outlets.
It isn't that Facebook is attacking brand pages, per se. The News Feed update incorporates the "report spam" and "hide" signals that allow users to curate the content they see; it only makes sense that negative feedback will negatively impact Reach. There's also the question of volume: not only have the number of Facebook users grown (now one billion strong), but Socialbakers reports that âbusinesses have been posting three more times in total than half a year ago, which means even tighter competition for News Feed real estate.â The algorithm had to adapt to keep delivering the freshest, most relevant posts for users.
To counteract a blow to brand visibility, itâs important to work smarter, not harder. Soldsie met with our extensive Facebook contacts to get the skinny on how promoted posts can work in tandem with the News Feed ranking algorithm--here's what we learned.
Regularly download your Facebook Insights to see negative feedback.
Facebook tracks each fan's history of engaging with your brand's posts in terms of Likes, Comments, Shares, and click-throughs; the more a fan responds to your posts, the more likely he or she will see content from you in the future. Conversely, if a Page consistently racks up negative feedback, it'll be docked for historical negative feedback rate.
That said, it's crucial to download your Facebook Insights on the post level to see how fans are responding to different types of content. The one caveat is that this number doesn't distinguish between the "hide" and "mark as spam" functions (photos, however, generally get tagged as spam more often than text-only posts).
Educate your fans about the Pages Feed.
From what we've seen, the Interests List just doesn't cut it in terms of collecting every product post into a single Soldsie Superfeed. The Pages Feed does a much better job of representing a fan's Liked brands, and it doesn't require the effort of manually adding Pages into separate Interests Lists. Get the word out to your customers!
As another measure, consider posting your sale as an album instead of individual products. This reduces clutter on your fans' News Feeds and sidesteps the risk of having an overwhelmed bystander begin to "hide" your posts. Accessory Concierge recently experimented with this and got a resounding hoorah about the new format.
Alternatively, try breaking up big sales into smaller ones that happen throughout the week. Merchants benefit from giving fans several opportunities to buy, and they avoid flooding their fans' News Feeds. Even when a user isn't participating in a particular comment auction, they'll be much friendlier to browsing through 20 scarves than through 60+.
Photos are still heavily weighted, but that doesn't keep them from getting old.
Yup, photos are still one of the most highly weighted post types across all users and Pages.  We understand your skepticism on this one: from the looks of it, it does seem like text-only status updates have been inching up the ranks. What most users overlook, however, is the fact that the algorithm learns from user interaction with each type of post from a brand. Merchants who feel that their photo posts have been demoted are probably feeling the effects of historically unpopular photo posts. Lastly, keep in mind that post type plays a part whether or not the update is promoted.
To make sure that your photos remain popular, shake up the ol' routine. Post engaging non-product photos so that fans who are usually too shy to comment or "Like" just yet have a way to interact with your Page. Some old standbys are someecards, memes, and celebrity news--these tend to get the most traction.
Target the right audience for your promoted posts.
Start by targeting your audience by country and gender. Promoting a Soldsie product post to an international audience won't drive sales, and may actually impede your business by attracting spam comments.
Retailers can also target their product posts to fans who have already Liked or commented on a preview post. While the post still benefits from organic and viral Reach, this promotion makes sure that the fans who are most excited by the sale don't miss it. Merchants who run comment auctions may also be able to pay per conversion, a specification that is in the process of rolling out to advertisers. By paying per comment, you don't pay unless you make a sale!
Selectively promote the posts that matter most.
In the words of Kool and the Gang, celebrate good times (c'mon!). Selectively promote the posts that will give you the best ROI, ie. announcements, contests, and exciting products. Promoting each product post is actually counterproductive to increased exposure since the algorithm protects users from seeing too much content from one Page at a time. A flood of content from your brand will also dilute your fan's attention, and the low level of interaction will hurt your post distribution in the future.
In many ways, the new Facebook algorithm is a test of how well you know your fans: what kinds of posts engage them, how often are they willing to interact with your Page, and what times are they most active on Facebook? The ranking rewards brands that have established a relationship with their fans, which, in the large scheme of things, is a great direction for social commerce. To gauge the success of your content and optimize your product posts, we recommend using Crowdbooster, a free service that provides in-depth analysis of your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Top image: Facebook data visualization on photo-sharing